Winds of change

Is there a policy shift?

The good news is that according to US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta, Islamabad has signalled its willingness to deal with the safe havens in its badlands. It would have sounded too good to be true only a few weeks ago.

But as the deadline for withdrawal of NATO troops from Afghanistan draws nearer, efforts to find common ground between Islamabad, Kabul and Washington have been redoubled.

Why the change of heart so late in the day? According to a senior US diplomat, with the endgame in sight Islamabad had not many options but to review its flawed security paradigm. The same can however be said of the US and Afghanistan revisiting their policies towards Pakistan.

The pitch had been queered by the recent assassination attempt on Afghan intelligence chief Asadullah Khalid, which Hamid Karzai alleged, had been planned in Quetta. Afghan president’s bitterness was understandable as the intelligence chief is reportedly not only his trusted lieutenant but also like a son to him. To boot, he is a sworn enemy of the ISI.

Apparently, President Asif Zardari at the trilateral moot in Ankara was able to convince the Afghan president that Islamabad was not behind the attack. Turkey’s President Abdullah Gul termed the assault as an attempt to derail the dialogue between the two countries, adding that as a result of the meeting both sides had renewed trust and were willing to work together.

A stage is being set for talks with the Taliban. And this time Islamabad is playing ball. A number of Taliban leaders – senior Taliban leader Mullah Turabi being the latest – have been released. Obviously, this is a clear signal to the Taliban to join the peace talks.

Contrary to the position a few months back, unmistakably the Pakistani military is playing ball now. Several emissaries of Karzai have met the Army Chief General Ashfaq Kayani in recent weeks. The message is loud and clear: Islamabad wants to be part of the solution rather than the problem.

Citing strategic and tactical restraints, till now the military has been reluctant to move against the militants holed up in North Waziristan. Now according to Panetta there has been a change of heart.

There has been no official confirmation of the US defence secretary’s statement, who only a few months back had claimed that the Haqqani network was the veritable arm of the ISI.

It is indeed ironical that we learn about a major policy shift in our strategic paradigm from US officials rather than our own!

When there was need to show our iron fist to the US in the post-Salala incident in November 2011, the parliament was used to send a tough message. But later NATO supplies were resumed without a whimper. Similarly, neither the Pakistani media nor the lawmakers have been given any clue from their own policymakers on what is happening on the Pakistan, US, Afghan and the Taliban front.

Obviously, there is a belated realisation on the part of our policymakers that the Al-Qaeda, the Afghan Taliban and the TTP are an existential threat to the Pakistani state. Apart from North Waziristan, their safe havens in Karachi and Quetta are major source of instability. The distinction between the good and bad or Afghan and the Punjabi Taliban is somewhat blurred when it comes to terrorist attacks within the country.

There has already been a lot of time wasted in useless polemics. By the time the US withdraws from Afghanistan at the end of 2014, Islamabad should be poised to be in an advantageous position vis a vis its western neighbor.

General Kayani has reiterated on different occasions that Pakistan, unlike the US, cannot wish away its neighbours. Hence it has to deal with Kabul even after the United States does the proverbial cut and run.

But in order to walk the talk Pakistan has to – no matter how belatedly – play a pivotal role in starting meaningful negotiations between Kabul, Washington and the Taliban. Obviously there are inherent difficulties in achieving this elusive goal.

Primarily, there is a huge trust deficit between Kabul and Islamabad on the one hand and between Islamabad and Washington on the other. Karzai and his US patrons have to do more in order to win the trust of Islamabad instead of keeping on blaming Pakistan for their failures in Afghanistan. Kabul and its patrons have to move against safe havens within Afghanistan that are used by the TTP to launch attacks against Pakistan.

Despite claims to the contrary, the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan is a major impediment to peace. Only hours after Leon Panetta had boasted to the CNN in Kandahar that the US was well on its way to defeating Al-Qaeda, there was an attack on the US base killing at least one US soldier.

Pakistan is in the process of announcing elections in the next three months. Nevertheless with the military calling the shots anyway, someone will always be in place to deal with the thorny strategic issues.

However, the US administration has still to get its act together. President Obama relied more on the CIA’s lethal drone programme to eliminate Al-Qaeda and its cohorts in Pakistan’s tribal areas than on a coherent negotiating policy to prepare for the endgame. Perhaps the strategy was to beat the Taliban to pulp in order to force them to negotiate on Washington’s terms.

Unfortunately, this game plan has been found to be utterly flawed. After 11 years and two months in Afghanistan, the ISAF has neither been able to usher in a stable government in Kabul nor in building a credible Afghan National Army or police to take over once the NATO forces leave.

President Obama has yet to decide who will be his next secretary of state to succeed Hillary Clinton, who is set to leave soon to nurse her presidential ambitions for 2016. Thankfully, the US permanent representative at the UN Susan Rice has bowed out of the race, clearing the decks for Senator John Kerry to be the next secretary of state.

Kerry is considered by Islamabad to be somewhat of a friend more in touch with the realities of the region. Another advantage that Kerry carries is that he is respected across the aisle in the US Congress. Hence he will be in a better position to sell the administration’s foreign policy initiatives.

However, in the final analysis, Kerry will pursue hard-nosed US foreign policy goals, not Pakistan’s. Hence it is time our military and civilian leadership should tailor Pakistan’s strategic and foreign policy goals according to our own long-term national interests.

The writer is Editor, Pakistan Today